


you must remember this

by hardboiledmeggs



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, F/M, Handwaving, Peggy Carter Lives, Pining, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6555895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardboiledmeggs/pseuds/hardboiledmeggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mysteriously de-aged Peggy Carter comes to terms with her past and her present and future relationship with Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you must remember this

**Author's Note:**

> There might be some wonky stuff in here that will be blown apart by future canon (is Sharon Peggy's niece? How does that timeline even work? I don't know!). Try not to think about it too much?
> 
> Hope you all like it. Reviews are very, very appreciated.

*

She wakes gradually, the fog of sleep subsiding, blinking a few times in the gauzy, early morning light. She notices it then – her hands. The joints feel more limber than they did the night before. She feels it in her shoulders next, then her back, hips, and legs. It’s an _absence_ – the loss of pain, of stiffness, of restraint. It’s numbing and freeing and surreal. 

Peggy blinks a few more times and looks down at her body, stretched out like a corpse on a hospital bed, half-covered by a grey-brown blanket. Perhaps she has died, she thinks. Perhaps an absence of pain is an absence of life. 

She raises her hands. The age spots and network of wrinkles are gone. Her skin – which she remembers as thin and delicate as crêpe paper – is now full and padded and pink. Even the beds of her fingernails look healthier. She presses her palms to her stomach and feels soft curves and warm flesh. She is sure she has died.

She lies still, and waits.

*

Sharon Carter has made a habit of visiting her aunt. She finds the hospital eerie, cold, and institutional, but she does it anyway. She remembers what her Aunt Peggy had meant to her when she was a girl, how she had inspired Sharon to pursue her own career in public service. And even though their closeness had faded, Sharon refused to abandon Peggy. 

She’s told all this to Steve, who decides to believe her after she tells him about her connection to Peggy. There is so little else Sharon has told him that he believes.

After the downfall of SHIELD, even though Sharon had come out on the right side of it, Steve still hesitates to trust her. But she is an unavoidable fixture at Peggy’s bedside, and when he treats her too coldly, Peggy glares at him, and so Steve avoids Peggy’s disapproval by treating Sharon with a grudging courtesy.

When he pulls into the facility parking lot, he scans for Sharon’s car. He likes to know what to expect. He spots it – a nondescript Honda with Virginia plates – and, in the privacy of his own car, he sighs and grits his teeth. 

On the elevator ride to Peggy’s floor, he prepares himself for the chilly types of visit he gets when they aren’t alone. Sharon dotes on her – _as she should_ Steve constantly has to remind himself – but the sight of Peggy being treated as the nonagenarian she _is_ is nearly unbearable. He doesn’t know how to reconcile the woman he knew – the _life_ he knew – with what exists in the world now.

But as he pushes the door to her room open, he can already hear Sharon; her usual quiet, overly-gentle tone is replaced by effervescent excitement. She looks at him as he enters, but her face is unreadable. Steve pushes the door open further, steps inside, and nearly falls to his knees.

Peggy stands in the center of the room, dressed in her usual white cotton nightdress, but utterly transformed. Her hair is not gray, but rich, coffee-brown. Her shoulders are not stooped, but straight and squared. Her expression is awed, but alert and happy. 

Steve crosses the room slowly. As he gets closer to her, he feels as though with every step he is penetrating a bubble – that a quick movement or a step too far might burst it and ruin everything. But in a few moves he is close enough that Peggy can reach out a hand to touch him. Her fingers are warm, her grip is strong, and, at last, Steve’s knees do give way.

Peggy steps towards him, and Steve lets go of her hands and wraps his arms around her waist. He presses his face against her belly; her hands trace his shoulders and weave into his hair. Words catch in his throat; there is nothing he can say. He clenches his jaw, fighting hard against a wracking sob that bubbles in his chest. 

“My darling,” Peggy says at last, her voice is thick with emotion, but strong. “I’m so glad you’ve come to see me.”

*

A flurry of tests and examinations follow, but nothing can explain the reversal of all apparent effects of aging. Steve doesn’t mind the mystery. He has seen gods and magic and all manner of inexplicable things, and he’s willing to call Peggy’s transformation a miracle and be done with it.

“So,” Sharon smiles, when the last of the doctors is gone and the three of them are left alone at last, “What do you want to do now?”

“I want to go home,” Peggy sighs. Her expression is serious and determined in a way that sends a warm rush of familiarity through Steve.

“Of course,” Sharon’s smile broadens, “The apartment’s just like you left it. We didn’t touch a thing. I’ll go get the car.”

“ _No_.” Peggy’s voice is sharp; she holds up a hand with her fingers pressed together. “I want to go to the house in Montauk.”

Sharon’s smile fades instantly. She shakes her head. “I don’t…Wouldn’t you rather go back to your apartment?” she offers weakly. To Steve, they now look to be nearly the same age, but Sharon suddenly looks girlish and frightened. Her dark eyes go wide and the corners of her mouth turn down.

Several arguments are presented, but Peggy insists, refusing to be swayed by Sharon’s pleading. “I’ll drive _myself_ ,” she says at last, her words cutting through the thick tension in the room.

“I’ll drive you,” Steve hears himself say, and Sharon’s gaze snaps to him. But Peggy’s eyes are as grateful as Sharon’s are accusatory, and being the object of Peggy’s appreciation is as thrilling as it’s always been.

“Wonderful,” Peggy nods absently, “Wonderful. Let me have a shower and change.” She runs her hands over her nightdress to underscore her point, then shoos them both out of the room.

In the hallway, with a closed door separating them from Peggy, Sharon turns on Steve. “Please don’t do this,” she tells him, “She doesn’t need to go there.”

Steve squares his shoulders. “You’re used to protecting her. I’m not.”

Sharon covers her face with her hands, presses her fingers against the bridge of her nose. “It’s a family thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” Steve scoffs, a little too confidently.

Her hands fly away from her face, uncovering watery, red-rimmed eyes filled with frustration and desperation. Steve’s gut squirms. He knows she’s right – he’s an orphan in every possible sense of the word. He feels suddenly adrift and in over his head. 

“My uncle—“ she starts stridently, but her voice falters and her mouth snaps shut for a moment while she collects herself. “My uncle died in that house. Even though…Even if…She just doesn’t need to remember that stuff. She hasn’t been there in – god – _years _. Why she wants to go now, after everything, I don’t…” Her voice trails off to a whisper.__

__Steve frowns; his brow furrows. In the months since he returned to her, the man Peggy married has remained an utter mystery. More than once, she has lovingly told him the stories that go with each of the framed photographs on her bedside table, and Steve has strained to hear her mention the man tied to the gold band on her left ring finger. But his image isn’t among those in Peggy’s collection. Steve doesn’t even know his name._ _

__He sighs and tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. “Maybe she wants closure. Nothing wrong with that.”_ _

__*_ _

__Peggy undresses slowly, as though one false move might undo whatever mysterious thing has been done to her. She stares at her reflection for a long while. She uses the toilet, showers, washes and brushes her hair, applies a coat of lipstick, and dresses in a simple, blue checkered shift she hasn’t worn in decades._ _

__She catches another glimpse of herself in the bathroom’s mirror. What she sees is profoundly eerie. It sends a chill down her spine, the sight of her the way she once was. The way Steve once saw her, the way her husband once saw her, the way Howard and Ana and Jarvis and Angie once saw her. She takes a deep, shaky breath, and forces herself to move. There’s no telling how long this miracle will last, and she has a resolution to find._ _

__*_ _

__She knows they’ll be driving all day, but she isn’t sure what to say to fill the silence. She watches herself in the rearview mirror, marveling at her dark hair and bright eyes and unblemished skin. She was used to this sight once, but now she wonders if she’ll ever again grow accustomed to seeing herself in the prime of youth._ _

__“You’re perfect either way, you know,” Steve says, glancing at her shyly._ _

__She can’t not smile. “That may be so,” she lets her hand rest between them, palm up, and he takes it. His palm is warm, pressed against hers. “But having experienced youth _and_ age, I think _I_ prefer this.”_ _

__Steve smiles and squeezes her hand._ _

__She keeps her hand in his for a long time, until, just as dusk approaches, Peggy finally falls asleep with her forehead pressed against her window. When they’re an hour from Montauk, Steve pulls the car through the drive-thru of some non-descript fast food restaurant (she can never tell them apart). The loss of momentum jars her awake._ _

__The sun sets as they cross Staten Island. Peggy knows which bridges and bends in the freeway, will give them fleeting glimpses of the glittering Manhattan skyline, and she is careful to turn her face away from the city. She can’t bear to see it now – the place where she met him. Not when she has already committed her evening to remembering how it ended, how she lost him at last._ _

__As they get closer, Steve rolls his window down. The night air is cool, but not frigid; the briny scent of the ocean hits Peggy like a punch to the gut. She closes her eyes. The directions she gives Steve come from memory: turn at the stop sign by the market; a left, then a right; pull the car into the driveway, not the patch of gravel along the road._ _

__When the car finally stops, her eyes open. Set against the dark night sky, Peggy can barely make out the outline of the house. She feels it looming over her ominously: a place of such great happiness and such horrific defeat. She remembers another night when she drove up to the house in the dark. The memory is abhorrent and poisonous, one she has spent years trying and failing to forget._ _

__“Will you—You’ve already done so much, but will you turn on the lights?” Peggy asks quietly._ _

__“What?”_ _

__Peggy produces a keyring from her purse and picks through it until she isolates a brass key. She hands it to him._ _

__“Please turn on the lights. All of them. I’ll wait here.”_ _

__“Sure, Peggy,” Steve takes the key from her, letting their fingers brush. “I’ll come get you when I’m done.”_ _

__Peggy pulls her hand back sharply. His touch was welcome earlier, but now she’s too spooked for it._ _

__“Thank you.”_ _

__*_ _

__On his walk up to the house, Steve only turns back once, and sees Peggy with her eyes pinched shut and her hand over her mouth. _Jesus_ he thinks, clenching his fist around the jagged clump of keys in his hand. It tears him up to see her in distress, and he mentally kicks himself for not listening to Sharon when he had a chance._ _

__It takes a couple of tries to get the door open; the sea breeze has left a fine, salty film on the lock, and the humid air has swollen the doorjamb. As delicately as he can, Steve finally wriggles the key until it turns, and pushes the door open._ _

__The atmosphere inside is musty, stale and thick. The house is silent, save for the muffled sound of waves hitting the beach. He closes the door behind him and reaches for a light switch._ _

__He goes room by room, turning on light switches and lamps. The furniture is covered in white sheets, which Steve carefully pulls off and gathers into a pile. That hadn’t been part of Peggy’s instructions, but the sheets only make the house look more forsaken, and surely that would upset her more. He unveils sofas and armchairs, a dining table, a desk. He’s been back from the ice long enough to see how outdated everything is, decorated in a traditional, more formal style that modern culture has long since forgotten._ _

__Walking through the house feels like entering an ancient ruin; some sacred site that had been lost to history for a millennium before some bumbling archaeologist stumbled across it. He remembers Bucky telling him about Howard Carter and Tutankhamun’s tomb; he remembers telling Bucky that Carter was a grave robber. Now, he wonders if he’s any different, creeping into another man’s home, another man’s tomb, propelled by his own damned curiosity._ _

__He moves upstairs and turns on the lights in three bedrooms – a sparsely decorated spare room, a room with a narrow bed and walls decorated in girlish lavender, which he’s sure must have belonged to Sharon, and, finally, a master suite. There, on a bedside table, he finds the clues he’s been looking for (though he would never admit it), the remnants of the nameless man he has spent too much time wondering about: a gold wristwatch in a crumpled pile, a pair of cufflinks, a book – _Meditations in an Emergency_ – and a small, black and white photograph in a simple metal frame. He lifts it gingerly for a closer look._ _

__He sees Peggy first. She is lit up by the camera’s flash, smiling, her hair perfectly curled, her lips darkened by lipstick. Steve knows immediately why this photograph warranted framing and a treasured bedside spot – even in monochrome, Peggy is undeniably radiant, alive and so damn _happy_. Next to her, a man – her _husband_ – has an arm wrapped tight around her shoulders. He isn’t much taller than she is, with dark hair and kind eyes. He smiles at the camera, as happy as she is. _ _

__In part, Steve feels relief. It’s comforting to have this tangible evidence that Peggy had been happy, that she had had someone in her life to make her smile. But then Steve clenches his jaw and steels himself. He has never been a jealous man – he has always preferred action over envy – but now the sensation pricks and burns at the back of his mind. He looks into the eyes of the man who got to marry Peggy and make love to her in this bed. The man who got to take care of her and stand by her side while Steve lay useless and immobilized under a mountain of ice. Steve wants to believe that he could have made Peggy as happy as she was in that photographed moment, frozen in time, but he feels suddenly unsure. It’s a question he’ll never know the answer to._ _

__He comes back to himself a moment later. He blinks and clears his throat and gently places the frame back on the nightstand. “Sorry,” he whispers to the empty room._ _

__Steve hurries down the stairs, rushes out the front door, back to the car. He holds out his hand to Peggy as they walk to the house, but she ignores him. She hasn’t touched him since they crossed over into New York. The thought of it sets him on edge._ _

__He’s left the front door open. Peggy walks through it slowly, purposefully, and stops in the foyer, at the base of the staircase leading to the second floor._ _

__“This is where I found him,” her voice is quiet, but steady. Steve’s blood runs cold. He can picture it: Peggy opening the door to an empty, dark house, nearly tripping over the body of her husband. “Sharon was with me. We were coming to meet him. I wish she hadn’t had to see that.”_ _

__“How did he…” Steve shudders, hoping against hope. _Soviet slug_ he hears in his mind _no rifling_. _ _

__“A heart attack.” Steve breathes a sigh of relief, followed quickly by a rush of guilt. “But,” Peggy presses her palms together, still staring at the floor, “There were puncture wounds on the hands. They were there when I…when I examined the body, before the paramedics arrived. But they didn’t put that in the autopsy report.”_ _

__She looks up at him with a look of genuine consternation, and Steve can see what she’s done, how she’s tucked her memories of grief and horror and despair underneath some errant scrap of her professional self. When being a grieving widow was too difficult, she imagined herself instead as an investigative agent, perplexed by odd details. Her hands clasp together as she moves into the living room; Steve sees her knuckles turn white._ _

__“We had such a lot of fun here.” She surveys the room. A row of enormous windows along an eastern-facing wall reveal a black, moonless night. Somewhere out there in the dark, Steve knows, is the ocean. The thought of that – a pitch dark night giving way to a bottomless sea – makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “He loved the beach. California suited him. But he was good enough to follow me to Washington. He was content as long as we had this house to escape to. As long as he could spend the summers here.”_ _

__“What was his name?”_ _

__Peggy stands quietly for a long while, facing the ominous, dark windows, with her back to Steve. He’s sure he’s done something wrong, and he nearly blurts out that she doesn’t have to tell him, when she answers._ _

__“Daniel. You met him once, in Belgium. He’d lost a leg and you visited his hospital. But that’s all ancient history now.”_ _

__“I bet I would’ve liked him,” Steve offers with a half-smile. He visited a lot of hospitals back then, filled with soldiers who pushed aside their pain long enough to shake his hand. He couldn’t remember any individual one of them if he tried._ _

__Peggy turns and smiles back at him, and some of the weight he’s carried over the past few hours lifts. “I bet you would have.”_ _

__“What unit was he in?”_ _

__“The hundred and first.”_ _

__Steve’s brow furrows. “So was Alexander Pierce’s father.”_ _

__Peggy blinks in surprise, then sighs. Her shoulders sag. “Of course he told you that,” she says quietly. “They knew each other in the war. They were friends, and quite close. The Pierces lived on Staten Island, not far from here. They were very ordinary people, but we liked them. We would meet here.” Peggy’s gaze sweeps the room, as though searching for some evidence that their friendship was innocent and unremarkable enough. “Alex was a very ambitious young man. He was interested in our work. Daniel and I took a lot of young people under our wing, back then. We never had any children so…so I suppose it was our way of contributing to the next generation.” She smiles weakly, shakes her head and looks down at her clasped hands._ _

__Steve watches her, standing perfectly still. She takes in a deep, tremulous breath, and when she looks back at him, her eyes are filled with tears._ _

__“I have spent my career trying to be impartial and unmovable, but after Daniel died – “ her voice breaks, and she purses her lips for a moment. “I had such a blind spot for that boy. I would have let him get away with—“_ _

__Her voice stops again. A rogue tear escapes and tumbles down her cheek. “What if he…what if he…” She searches Steve’s face, lost and helpless and too late. “There were marks on his hands. His _hands_.” She unclenches her own hands, and holds them palms up, her fingers spread. _ _

__Her legs buckle, she nearly falls to the floor before Steve fairly sprints across the room and grabs her, wrapping his arms around her and clutching her tightly to his chest._ _

__“I didn’t know,” she gasps between sobs, “I swear, I didn’t know.”_ _

__Steve runs a soothing hand over her hair, “I believe you.”_ _

__She presses her face against his chest. Steve feels every ounce of her grief, every molecule of sadness. He tightens his arms around her._ _

__“All I ever wanted to do was protect what you started, what you sacrificed,” she says. Steve wishes he could see her face. There’s a swell of emotion that builds in his gut, blooms in his chest, and then—_ _

__“I love you,” he hears himself say, and it feels like a sudden, out of body experience; it’s something he’s only imagined himself telling her for what feels like ages._ _

__Peggy pulls back then, looking up at him with a serious, quizzical expression. She steps back and out of his arms; the loss stings, almost unbearably._ _

__“Don’t say that.” The sorrow is gone from her voice. After a moment’s thaw, she’s gone cold again._ _

__“Hey—“ Steve starts, indignant and frustrated._ _

__“You don’t know what it means,” she says, raising a hand when he opens his mouth to protest, “You _don’t_.”_ _

__She crosses her arms and walks away from him, to the blank bank of windows that separates them from the dark beach._ _

__“I’ve done terrible things. I’ve _known_ terrible things and done nothing. And the things I didn’t know—” She turns and eyes him warily. “You ought to hate me.”_ _

__“Peggy—“ he starts, but she turns her back to him again. Steve can see her looking at her own, miraculously transformed, reflection. It hits him suddenly, what she means, what she’s afraid to say, and it knocks the wind out of him. “Did you know about Bucky?”_ _

__She turns and looks at him, faces him full-on. She’s been waiting for him to ask._ _

__“We knew that the Russians were conducting invasive thought control experiments using human subjects. We knew they were working towards controlling behavior, as well.”_ _

__Steve frowns. “Did you know about Bucky?” he repeats slowly._ _

__Peggy looks at him, still as a sphinx. He sees her past inside her now – decades of secrets and lies, obfuscation, denial, and deception, coiled together like a spring. He doesn’t know why they’re here, but he had thought it was for her to find her own closure. He realizes now that her husbands’ is not the only ghost that follows her._ _

__“Yes,” she says at last, and Steve lets out a breath. “There was nothing we could have done, not without starting a nuclear war.”_ _

__His heart aches. How alone Bucky had been, how abandoned._ _

__“If I had been there –“_ _

__“It would have been the same.” She shakes her head and continues in a soft, broken voice. “We made hard choices. You would have, too. In the end, we all paid dearly. It was a blessing that you weren’t here to see it. There were so many times when I didn’t miss you. When I was so glad you were gone.”_ _

__Steve swallows hard. He tries to wonder what difference it makes, knowing that Peggy knew about Bucky, knowing that she opened the door to Alexander Pierce, to the HYDRA infiltration of SHIELD. But (for once) he can’t muster up any righteous anger. Not at Peggy. Not even now. He is still filled with cavernous longing and overwhelming love. There are many constants in his life, and what he feels for Peggy is one of them._ _

__“I forgive you.”_ _

__She scoffs, “You shouldn’t.”_ _

__“I do.” He furrows his brow, determined. “I’m the one who left him in that ravine. I could’ve gone back for him, but I ran off to get myself killed instead. If you’re to blame for what happened, then I am too.”_ _

__She looks at him, sighs and purses her lips. He can’t read her. It’s strange, he thinks, to see Peggy look so much like the woman he knew but to know that she is an entirely different person, and a person he now barely knows._ _

__“I’m tired,” she says. “I’m sure you are, too. Driving all day.”_ _

__It feels definitive and conversation-ending. For the millionth time, Steve feels out of his depth with her. She shrugs a shoulder and gestures as she moves past him, back towards the foyer. He follows her._ _

__

__*_ _

__Steve follows her upstairs, feeling awkward and unsure, but resolved to stay by her side._ _

__She pauses at the door to Sharon’s room. “Sharon always had a place with us.” Peggy gives him a tense smile and clears her throat. “Not long after the war, I was exposed to something. Daniel was, too. A kind of radiation. It made it difficult for us to, well,” she shrugs. Steve looks at her, examining her for any betrayal of emotion, but her expression is tightly guarded. He knows in an instant that whatever Peggy and her husband felt about their infertility, neither he nor anyone else will ever ( _should ever_ ) know; he feels stupid and thoughtless for even wondering. _ _

__At the entrance to the house’s master bedroom, Peggy only hesitates for a moment before entering. Steve falters and stays behind, hovering in the doorway, watching as she drifts away from him, to a time in her life that didn’t include him._ _

__She moves slowly, running a hand along the quilted bedspread, touching each of the things on Daniel’s nightstand. She sits on the edge of the bed and presses her hands to the mattress as though searching for a sign left in the springs that her husband had lain there._ _

__Steve braces himself, ready to say goodnight and goodbye to her and beat a hasty retreat to the house’s guest bedroom._ _

__She inhales deeply, closing her eyes, and just as Steve opens his mouth to speak, she looks up at him and smiles. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says, and all Steve can do is nod. She stands, crosses the room and takes his hand, leading him to the guest room he had envisioned occupying by himself._ _

__She turns on a lamp. The room is slightly cramped, filled with a large bed on an antique brass frame. The air feels close and old. Peggy lets him go and slips out of her shoes, leaving them empty at the foot of the bed, and slides between the wall and the bedside. She pulls the covers down._ _

__“You don’t mind, do you?”_ _

__“No, I—No, of course not.”_ _

__She nods without looking at him, and slides under the covers without taking off her dress. She turns her back to him and pulls the blankets up to her neck. And that’s the last Steve sees of her for a long while._ _

__*_ _

__When Peggy wakes, the room is dark and quiet, save for the dull _splash_ of the nearby waves breaking on the sandy beach. She can sense Steve at her back, pressing the mattress down with his weight, and turns. In the dim, blue-black light, she can just see the outline of his face – a sculpted jaw, the line of his nose, dark eyelashes fanned out against pale skin. He is unbearably beautiful, so filled with forgiveness for her, and so much more than she deserves, now._ _

__She raises a hand impulsively, pressing her palm to his cheek, and his eyes flutter open._ _

__“Peggy?” His voice is soft and slurred._ _

__Something volcanic shoots through her – a molten, mutinous, violent combination of desire and greed and nihilism. She crosses the space between them in an instant; her mouth his hot and hungry against his, her arms cling to his shoulders, sheer _need_ quakes through her. After a moment of surprise, Steve responds, surging against her, grasping and desperate. He kisses her mouth, her cheeks, her neck, warm and worshipful. The room fills with the sounds of their sighs and gasps of pleasure at having this together for the first time, so unexpectedly. Peggy feels her hands start to tremble; she wonders if she really _did_ die in that stuffy room back in DC._ _

__She presses her body against Steve’s, but when the hard ridge of his erection pushes against her hip he darts back, bashful and mortified by his uncontrollable body. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly, “I’m sorry.”_ _

__The thought that he could offend her is outrageous; Peggy grabs the front of his slacks, pulls apart the fly and zipper, hikes her wrinkled dress up around her hips and straddles his hips. She watches him carefully as she lowers herself onto his length – the way his neck arches back, the way his shoulders tense and his mouth goes soft and slack. She has learned, only too recently, how frail human memory is, but she tries to burn the sight of him into her mind and hopes it will stay there._ _

__Steve pulls at her dress until it’s loosened enough for her to lift it over her head; somehow, he manages to wriggle out of his shirt, shorts and slacks while balancing her on his lap._ _

__He is under her, over her, all around her, naked, glistening with sweat, gasping, moaning, kissing her with lips that taste like salt, using his body to tell her the truth she wouldn’t (couldn’t) accept in words. There is nothing sweet or gentle about it; together, they are relentless, unforgiving, intense. Peggy’s teeth chatter, her chest clenches, tears fall freely and unheeded from her eyes. Steve pushes her into a shuddering, breathless orgasm, and follows soon after, shaking in her arms and crying out against her shoulder. He pulls out of her, still hard, but too spent to go on._ _

__“Are you okay?” he whispers, and she nods and pets his hair._ _

__He drifts back to sleep with his head heavy against her breast and his hand on her belly. Peggy pulls the covers back up around them, but she won’t let sleep take her._ _

__

__*_ _

__In a few hours, the sky brightens, filling the room with pale, white light. Peggy doesn’t let herself dwell long on the way it makes Steve’s skin glow, or how the sight of his bare shoulders in the daylight sends another hot shot of lust through her. Instead, she gently pushes him off of her, watching as he resettles clutching two pillows against his chest._ _

__Finding her crumpled dress, she pulls it on, slides on her shoes, and silently treads across the hall to the master bedroom._ _

__She opens the closet door and reaches inside, running her hand across heavy-knit sweaters and cotton shirts. Peggy pulls out a light brown cardigan. It wasn’t a favorite – Daniel had hardly ever worn it, and when she presses it to her face the scent of him is long gone. But when she puts it on, pushing her arms through the too-big sleeves and tucking her hands into the pockets, she finds a scrap of tissue, a wrinkled business card from a local florist, and an iridescent chip from a mussel shell. She imagines him picking it up – a little fragment of blue-purple on the white sand. She wonders what he meant to do with it._ _

__She looks over the room. For so long after his death, she had avoided the memory of her husband, pushed it aside in favor of work or distractions or nearly anything else. Of all the people she’d loved and lost, she had gotten to say goodbye to precious few of them, but Daniel’s death, as sudden and senseless as all the others, had hurt too deeply to comprehend._ _

__Now, standing in the room they shared, in his clothes, holding something that he’d touched, she feels him – all of them – with her. She pulls the sweater tightly around her and tucks the shell into its pocket. As she leaves, she pauses for a moment with her hand on the door._ _

__“Goodbye, my darling.”_ _

__*_ _

__Steve wakes alone, dresses, and finds Peggy on the beach, dressed in her clothes from the day before and a boxy tan sweater he presumes belonged to her husband. Her dark hair is wind-tossed and covered in a fine layer of mist and sea salt. The early-morning clouds still haven’t burned off, and he can see that the skin on her calves has turned to gooseflesh in the cold._ _

__He touches her shoulder as he comes to stand next to her, just to let her know he’s there._ _

__“You’re still—“_ _

__She smiles, “Yes.”_ _

__He smiles back, “I guess I almost thought…maybe, in the morning it’d be, you know, _poof_.” He shrugs._ _

__“Good thing you like me either way.” Her smile turns wry._ _

__Steve nods slowly. “I do,” he admits. Even now that he’s seen the benefits of her restored body, he knows that he would love her despite any age or infirmity._ _

__Peggy sighs and crosses her arms over her chest. They stand together quietly for a long while before she speaks again._ _

__“I don’t understand why I’m starting over now, with you here, looking like this. I don’t understand why I get to have _you_ back. I owe you the most. I’ve done you the greatest disservice.”_ _

__“I wish it was him instead of me,” Steve blurts out impulsively. “I wish you got…got to have him back instead.” It’s a thought that’s been percolating since he first saw the photograph upstairs – that of all people, _he_ was the one who was returned to her. It seems random and senseless, evidence of the chaotic universe that spins around them._ _

__Peggy turns to him with a sober expression. “People like us – we lose so much. How could we ever _regret_ getting anything back? Even if it’s not quite in the condition we left it in,” she gives him a rueful smile. “There aren’t words for how much I loved Daniel, for what we shared together, but I’ve never once thought—“ Peggy takes his hand, raises it to her mouth and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “I wouldn’t trade you for anything.” _ _

__Steve takes his hand back and folds his arms around her. “Same goes,” he whispers against the crown of her head. His heart feels heavy and light at the same time. She is deeply, profoundly right – Peggy and Bucky were both returned to him, and he to her, and they were all changed by time in both small and enormous ways. He thinks of all the people who won’t be returned to him, and for the first time feels truly lucky._ _

__Peggy tells him that on another chilly morning long ago, she’d spread Daniel’s ashes on the beach under their feet. She tells him that she’d held on to the house for decades, unable and unwilling to sell it. When they get back to DC, she tells him, she’s going to call a real estate broker. Steve holds her to him tightly, breathing her in, listening to the soft sound of her voice, until she pulls back slightly._ _

__Peggy reaches into her pocket, holds out something to him, and Steve opens his palm._ _

__“A gift,” she says, smiling._ _

__He grins back at her, feeling love-drunk and light-headed. He looks down at the tiny, luminous fragment of seashell she has left in his hand. “Thank you.”_ _

__“Come on,” she says, patting his arm, “Let’s go home.”_ _


End file.
